FLASH IN LINUX

Flash is today’s tool of choice for animated, interactive web content. But Flash and Linux are worlds colliding. We'll show you the current crop of Open Source Flash authoring solutions.

Flash began in 1995, when Future- Wave presented a forerunner known as FutureSplashAnimator. One year later, Macromedia acquired FutureWave, publishing the first version of Flash in 1997. Most Flash movies are created in the Macromedia Flash authoring environment. The file format used with Flash movies is known as Small Web Format (SWF). The Macromedia Flash Player [1] has a virtual monopoly on playing SWF files; according to Macromedia, the figure is about 98 percent. Of course, these figures can vary depending on the kind of users you ask. There is no genuine alternative to the Macromedia player at present. The only hopes of that changing in the future lie with the free GPLFlashPlayer, where work is currently underway on Version 2.

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